


A Child Again

by Sevent



Series: Geraskier Halloween prompts [1]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: De-Aged Jaskier | Dandelion, Fluff, Kid Fic, Light Angst, M/M, Magic, Saovine, Trick or Treating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:21:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27308383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sevent/pseuds/Sevent
Summary: Neither Geralt nor Jaskier want to celebrate last harvest, so they take a long day stroll to miss most of the celebrations. An injured dragon falls on them. It grants them a wish as thanks for helping treat its wound.Jaskier does not word his wish well.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Geraskier Halloween prompts [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1967734
Comments: 36
Kudos: 277





	A Child Again

**Author's Note:**

> This is written for Geraskier Halloween! The trope/prompt combination: **trick or treating** \+ **misuse of magic**.
> 
> Minor reference to the Djinn and the passage of time. 
> 
> (This isn’t traditional trick-or-treating, but our modern version twisted to an older style. The original guising/souling tradition is super dope, but alas, I am using just what my little brain knows best.)

Dawn shines on the last day of harvest, the sun rising through a cloud-dotted pink sky. Carved gourds decorate the front steps of all the houses they pass, alongside painted masks put out to dry. A quick glance through an open window reveals a child, a young boy, hopping excitedly inside a white knitted smock. 

It’s a typical rustic sight to behold on such a blessed holiday, the first harvest that Geralt happens to spend in Jaskier’s company.

Neither of them really knows where to go. The witcher has yet to find a contract to replenish his coin purse, something that has him in a foul mood. No town they’ve come across in the region wants to cleanse the spirits popping out at night. They prefer to wait _after_ Saovine, despite the witcher’s warnings that the superstition helps no one but the wraiths, as they grow stronger around the hallow eve. 

Everyone can sense that the witcher is grumpy. They give him a wide berth in the street, to Jaskier’s nagging reprimand.

As for Jaskier’s own pockets, well. The bard may bust out his lute for a round of songs at every inn they eat in, but people pay him in blessings and food—it’s last harvest, sharing goods is the proper way of showing thanks. So, he is a little grumpy himself. 

They are _both_ rather tired of the local customs and niceties hampering their pay. 

Leaving in the middle of Saovine preparations might just get them marked as bearers of bad luck, though. He doesn’t think they’d be stoned for it, but he also doesn’t want to find out what sort of superstitious fix they think is fitting to perform. 

In everyone’s best interest, a long winding stroll will have to do. If they take the right turns, the stroll will make them miss the night’s celebratory _treating,_ that time between dusk and midnight when children walk around wearing their choice of mask to scream for sweets. 

Geralt’s brain stutters every time one of the little scamps is brave enough to come up to him, something that earns him a lot of teasing from the bard, and what hypocrisy. It’s not like Jaskier is any better with children himself. He panics when little curious hands try to pluck at his priceless elven lute—and that’s if it is out and about for playing. Otherwise they pick at his strange fabric flaps and tug, sometimes hard enough to tear at the expensive cloth. 

So a stroll they take. Both of them are in better spirits as the sun rises over the treeline, not a masked face in sight. All they have to do is camp out till midday, eat some packed sandwiches, and at sunset, retrace their steps, just in time for the midnight feast. They congratulate each other on an excellent avoidance scheme that won’t tarnish their reputation with the townsfolk.

Their plan is ruined by a green dragon falling from the sky.

It lands squarely on top of them. Luckily it’s a small fledgling and not a full grown adult else they’d have been crushed under its huge scaled body, and that would have been the end of both their lives’ tale. 

The dragon is still _really_ heavy, and uncomfortably knobby. From nose tip to tail end, the winged beast is one-and-a-half Geralts long. When it squawks, it’s with a high pitch, like it’s not yet ten summers old.

“Oofh,” Jaskier elegantly says to the dragon’s flattening weight.

“Gwak!” the dragon replies.

They all scramble to stand, the dragon limping a few Geralt-lengths away. Moss-green scales gleam in the fading light. It’s a beautiful creature, save a dark patch that lines its wing, indicating a fresh wound. 

“Hey, hey,” the witcher says to it softly, both his palms open and facing up. “We won’t hurt you. You’re already hurt, yeah?”

The dragon looks at them with distrust. It flaps its wings once, but stops short of flying with a wince. A watery bellow sounds from deep inside its body.

The bleeding wing tucks closer to its chest.

Gently, Geralt comes closer to the skittish green dragon until he’s near enough to show it the potted salve he pulls from his bag. He cracks it open for the youngling to sniff and know that it is no poison, that they mean it no harm. 

It gives the pot a tentative sniff, all the while fidgeting back and forth on its hindlegs. 

“This stops bleeding. You understand me?”

A voice like drizzling rain trickles inside his head. From the looks of his startle, Jaskier hears it too. _“Yes.”_

Dragon, witcher and bard blink at each other for a good minute. A valuable minute of silence, as it helps them become comfortable with one another. 

It’s Geralt who shakes his head. Jaskier mirrors him but with a smile, his chest moving as if in withheld laughter. Really, a _dragon_ fell on top of them. 

The witcher chooses to let him have his private laugh, first going to check the damage done to the dragon's wing. 

A few scales have been scraped off in a straight line, the likely culprit, he surmises, a large ballista bolt. The wound fortunately doesn’t look serious. It didn’t puncture through or cut anything vital. 

“Jaskier,” he calls out, raising the wing higher, “Could you help me here?”

A fine eyebrow climbs Jaskier’s face. “Help _how?”_

“Just lift their wing and keep it straight, that’s all. I need my hands for this.”

“Well, uh.” Hesitant hands take his place over the wing’s tip. “The sooner it’s done, the better, right? Oh, it’s—slippery, why didn’t you say it was slippery—”

Jaskier’s nervous maundering aside, the job gets done quickly and efficiently. He cleans the wound with the remaining water from his waterskin and coats the bleeding wing with a good handful of salve. 

The relief is almost instant in the dragon’s eyes. 

_“Thank you,”_ it _—she,_ the dragon corrects—says with clear gratitude in her mind’s voice.

Geralt pockets the salve. He shrugs, “It’s nothing.”

_“It’s not nothing to me. I was separated from my mother in a cloud and in searching for her, I flew over a human settlement. They did not spare me an ear, but plenty of their bolts. You decided to help without yet hearing me utter a word.”_

Her praise is undeserving, and unnecessary in Geralt’s simple opinion. It is not his duty as a witcher to protect dragons, nor is it a point of pride. But in this changing world, where the old races are dying out to human greed and butchery, _someone_ needs to.

He says as much to her, but not in such a somber approach, as she is still young to the world’s ways, still hopeful and trusting.

“I have met some of your kin before. I knew that you wouldn’t harm humans unless they harmed you first. We have no reason to hurt each other.”

The dragon straightens to her maximum height. _“You are a witcher, I see. Only a witcher speaks so plainly about complicated things, my mother would say.”_

The hairs on the back of his neck stand at the sharp tinge of magic that fills the air. It is not threatening, though the strength of it is a shock to feel. 

He stares at her gold-flecked eyes, and she stares in return. It’s a bit overwhelming to hold a dragon’s gaze, with the raw power humming out of her, so he turns his head to instead watch Jaskier release the wing for the dragon’s comfort. His pouty mouth is twisted in minute revulsion, hands quickly slapping together to rub the feeling of slippery dragon scales off. A new frown paints his features as the magic reaches a zenith point. “Is something—?” 

_“Anything you wish,”_ the dragon abruptly interrupts, _“I will grant. Temporarily. I am not yet old or wisened enough to accomplish great feats, but this would be a sufficient reward within my power. Whatever you ask for, witcher, will remain so until the sun next rises over the horizon.”_

The green of the dragon’s scales glows a brighter shade, like wet leaves under the midday sun. He can feel the promise in her words, the truth in them. He would really be given a day of magic reward.

Geralt slowly declines.

“I don’t have any wishes in mind. I don’t want any, actually. Been there. Learned my lesson.”

The hum of power stutters, for a brief moment. He’s surprised her.

“Well,” Jaskier drawls musically at his side, his arm making a home for itself on his padded shoulder, “If you’re not going to take a magical dragon’s favor then I’ll _gladly_ take the offer off your hands.”

Geralt grunts in warning. “Jaskier—”

“I’m _kidding._ I was there for your unfortunate wishing too, remember?”

Oh, he remembers, which is precisely _why_ he’s wary of the offhand joking—Jaskier had some _interesting_ wishes to say when he thought he had the djinn’s favor.

Without missing a beat, Jaskier waves his hands dismissively in the witcher’s face. “Don’t say it, I know what you’re thinking and it wounds my gentlemanly character.” 

“You wound it yourself.”

Between their bickering, the dragon looks more and more perplexed. She lowers from her elegant stance with a confused tilt of her head. _“You...would not have any wish at all? How am I to thank you then?”_

“Oh, little one.” The bard smiles at her. He’s not so perturbed by the intensity of her gold-flecked eyes. “He’s good with just knowing you’ll be alright. Thank yous are not always a trade.”

It’s really as simple as that, Geralt thinks, but the dragon has difficulty with understanding him. And there’s something in her uncertainty that resonates with Jaskier. Geralt doesn’t know why, or what it is, but he reads it in the bard’s wistful tone.

“Hmm, you’re still young, aren’t you? You said you’re not yet ‘wisened’ enough. I for one think youth is priceless, so don’t you worry about that. Enjoy your unwise years.”

He speaks as if from a well of timeless knowledge, which is ridiculous because Jaskier is the most childish and immature man he’s met and _definitely_ not wisened yet for all the years they’ve known each other—the _many_ years they’ve known each other. 

The many years.

Geralt forgets that Jaskier’s not a young man anymore. He’s lived his best years already, hasn’t he? Swept right past them and left _Geralt_ none the wiser to them. 

It’s been so long since he was a young lad himself, so long as to feel like someone else’s dream. 

“Oh,” Jaskier sighs, and the theatrical dramatics of his kneeling reminds the witcher that no, there is not a wise bone in the bard’s body to be doing this speech. He is just overselling the nostalgia bit now. 

“Oh,” he sighs again, “What I would give to be a fetching boy again, to stand and not have my ankles pop like a log catching fire...wouldn’t that be nice for once, Geralt?”

He’s about to ask if this isn’t a point against Geralt making him walk everywhere in his _‘delicate years’_ , when the young dragon perks up on all fours. _“I can do that.”_

“Um, sorry?”

Raw power comes crashing back, pouring out of glimmering green scales to a blinding beam of light. She chants something in her mother tongue and a sphere of solid magic begins encircling the kneeling bard, much to his alarm. 

“Now hold on—!” 

Jaskier tries taking back his words, but it’s too late in the stage of her spell. It will be done. His wish is granted.

Geralt can’t see through the light, but he catches a peep, then a powerful snap that rattles between his ears. 

At the fading power, he blinks away the white afterimage. And comes face to face with a boy. A boy with _very_ familiar features.

The young dragon is nearly preening with satisfaction at her great work, but at the witcher’s troubled expression, she stops to lower her head. _“Was this not what he wanted?”_

The boy startles at the great web-winged lizard looming over his head and scurries behind Geralt’s legs with a frightened shout. 

“Uh." Geralt pats the kid's shoulder awkwardly. "Hey, hey it’s alright. No need to hide. It’s a nice dragon. You know dragons? Nice dragons don’t eat children.”

That does not comfort young Jaskier much. But at least he’s not crying, just scared.

To the dragon he offers, “I don’t think he meant literally,” by way of reply. It does not comfort her either. “It’s, uh. It’s not permanent, right?”

_“It is as I spoke. The wish will last until sunrise.”_

Geralt blows out a long breath through his nose. The kid does not loosen his grip on his leg. “So a day...” 

A day to spend taking care of a tiny human. Just the exact opposite of what he wanted for last harvest. It’s the whole reason— _most_ of the reason—why they went strolling through a remote path in the first place. To avoid kids.

But this _kid_ is Jaskier, and he can’t just leave him alone in the middle of the woods until the wish’s time runs out.

He rubs his forehead, thinking seriously on what would be best. Going back to town would be safest. Towns afford them warm food, warm beds, and protection. 

The young dragon hovers hesitantly over the magicked bard. She cannot move her face very much, but he reads her worry all the same in her gold-flecked, welling eyes. 

“I’ll keep him safe,” he tells her, and it’s a promise. “You best rest that wing too. Find a cave, heal. There’s a few around these parts. Then, when you’re good and able, go find your mother. And never fly close to anything human again. We witchers are rare too.”

 _“Yes. I will be sure to seek shelter. And you,”_ she calls kindly to the boy behind his leg, _“You do not know me as you are now, but I will value your lesson for all my living days. 'Thank yous are not always a trade'.”_

Her word said, she nods her farewell and slinks through the trees, the green of her scales helping her blend and disappear in a wink.

Jaskier doesn’t remember himself. 

He _knows_ himself well enough, just not anything to do with the name _‘Jaskier’,_ or any witcher called _‘Geralt’,_ or why he should be following said witcher around. The boy doesn’t answer the question of what his name is either, so Geralt takes to thinking of him as The Boy—easier than continuing to call him by something he doesn’t respond to.

One thing he learns shortly into their trek is that The Boy does not like being led along. At every narrow turn in the path, The Boy attempts to run off and become a child of the wilds. That the foliage is a bit too dense for his little arms to push out of the way saves the witcher from having to chase him far.

“Let me go! I don’t want to become a witcher!”

Geralt sighs. He puts The Boy down. “You’re not my child surprise.”

“Why won’t you let me run away then!”

“Because you’re lost and alone. I’m watching over you.”

Big blue eyes scowl up at him. “I want to be alone!”

After the tenth or so escape, when Geralt makes the act of giving up, The Boy comes back in short order to yell at him. So he does _not_ like or want to be alone. 

It is incredibly difficult to please him, with his apparent contradictions. 

At least he seems to have accepted halfway to town that the witcher is alright to creep around. Makes Geralt’s job of protecting his kid-ified friend one less hassle.

The town ought to be safe to wait out the dragon’s spell, he considers at first. Plenty of children there to entertain The Boy—except most of the parents hold on to their kids when the witcher passes, fearing him for a kidnapper now that he suddenly has a child with him—and that means few children dare to come up to The Boy and play with him. 

Geralt curses himself for not taking into account how the townspeople would react to him and his curious new friend. It may be last harvest, with good cheer and charity shared around, but he is still a witcher, still just barely tolerated inside their community, all thanks to Jaskier being there to vouch for his character.

But Jaskier isn’t here now. A clueless little version of him is. 

Something about the town’s odd vigilance must upset The Boy, because for all his previous acrimony, he starts to listen and follow without huffing complaint. The witcher tells him to stay close as they traverse a crowd in the market, and he does. He asks him for his hand when someone bumps into them, and it is given. His trust comes at a grateful time. Geralt would hate to lose sight of his charge in such a congested place. 

Now, when a kid _does_ come over to them with a game of jacks, The Boy kicks dirt in the kid’s eyes, making them cry. 

_Everyone_ gives them a wide berth after that.

“That was mean of you,” Geralt scolds.

“So what, he had boogers.” The Boy sniffs, unaffected. “I don’t like jacks anyway.”

Pass the crowd that now parts for them and soon safely inside their inn, Geralt scratches his head at a loss. He has no idea what to do with a child. They’re snivelly and whiny and scream a lot for no reason. The screaming particularly is what turns him away. It hurts his ears.

But The Boy doesn’t scream. He’s bossy and combative, sure, but he doesn’t empty his lungs at minor inconveniences, or even the _usual_ conveniences, like when Geralt first raised his voice to him in the woods for purposely muddying his clothes—his original clothes that fortunately shrunk down to fit him with the spell’s casting.

The Boy, he also discovers, is prone to negotiating for rewards. A very unchildlike thing for him to know how to practice. 

Geralt can't work with a child, but he _can_ work with negotiation.

At lunch, The Boy promises to empty his plate, which is mostly full of greens, if the witcher will buy him a treat after. They shake on it, and a candied apple makes its way to a lot of The Boy’s bargaining offers. 

Geralt has to stop it at the fourth—that much sugar _can’t_ be good for him. They switch to negotiating nap time and length.

The nap ends up being three and a half hours long in the high afternoon. His compliance in return is to accompany the witcher back to market in search for the smith. He overheard someone talking about their excellent craftsmanship and he ought to reinforce his chest plates before they start falling apart in the middle of a hunt. That is, if he can afford the cost. 

The Boy, absolute unpredictable rogue that he is, decides in that moment to disappear on him. 

"Jaskier!"

He halfway remembers that calling out _‘Jaskier’_ won’t get him anywhere and swears up a storm. He should have given the kid a nickname, not just accepted a meaningless title as an adequate substitute. Now he’s scrambling past stalls, eyes focused on any mop of short brown hair. A few children get the scare of their lifetime, their startled screams only worsening his panic.

He’s saved more screams by the crashing of wood. It’s The Boy being kicked out of a farmer’s stall.

A stout man fumes over his upturned boxes, pointing fingers at Geralt once he spots The Boy scrambling behind him for cover. “Keep that thief of yours away, witcher!”

Curious bystanders stop and whisper about the scene. Some of their murmuring is downright vicious, amused that the witcher’s little robber has gotten caught in the act.

Geralt ignores them. He pats The Boy’s—no, no more of that. He pats _Jaskier’s_ hair, relieved at no sign of injury. His little frame shakes like a leaf, but he looks to be alright, just spooked.

There’s too many people making a spectacle out of them, though, and it’s getting to be annoying. “Come on, let’s go someplace else.”

Jaskier sticks to him like a shadow.

In a quieter part of town with no snooping eyes, he stops to sit Jaskier up on a fence, so they’re at equal height. “What did you want from the stall? You could just have asked me to buy it.” He’s a little angry at the boy and it shows slightly in his voice, but his worry is a greater beast. He tries to make clear that there won’t be any sort of punishment.

He is met with an uncharacteristically sheepish, “You...but you don’t have...”

His small hands twiddle over his pockets, and it’s how Geralt understands that he means to say _coin._

“Shit,” he says under his breath. Despite his attempts at keeping his troubles to himself, Jaskier must have noticed it by how sparse lunch was. If he counts Jaskier’s own coin purse, they have plenty to spare for food, but he wouldn’t just use it without Jaskier’s knowledge. A kid shouldn’t have to pay for his own meals, anyway. 

“Hey, it’s alright,” Geralt soothes, because the kid is starting to look sad _and_ sorry for having implied that the witcher can’t afford two full plates of meat. “It’s not a problem. Whatever it is, I can get it for you.”

“Even if I don’t deserve it?”

Geralt frowns. “You let me be the judge of that first, hm?”

A day is hardly long enough to know anyone well, but he knows that’s not something the brazen and commanding little Jaskier—the kid who gets everything he asks for after a round of negotiation—would say. He has never given Geralt the indication that he ever questioned _deserving_ anything. 

But maybe—maybe that’s on Geralt, for not watching him closer. Gods, he's no good with children.

After a long moment's pause, letting Jaskier decide for himself if he wants to say it or not, the boy tentatively comes down the fence, keeping his eyes downcast. “I don’t have a mask for...”

“Oh.” A mask? “You want to go treating?”

The boy grumbles, and it’s an encouraging uplift from his timid mood. “I don’t _live_ here.”

“Every kid gets to go treating, doesn’t matter if they’re from town or not.” He bows a knee and meets the sulking boy’s eyes. “Tell you what, pumpkins are cheap right now. Practically given out for free. We can make one. You tell me how you want it carved and I’ll do it. I can’t make a guise, but a mask is all you need to be marked for a treater.”

The hopeful shock in Jaskier’s face decides it for him. They’re going treating.

Treating is a fairly new tradition of the holiday. In Geralt’s youth, kids would follow the Old Mare ghost all around the town and at the end of the night’s patrol, they’d be given the candies she gathered from every knocked doorstep. If a person behind a knocked door didn’t have any treats to offer, she’d send the little rascals to do some innocent vandalism—usually hen eggs thrown at closed windows. Or if the person was particularly nasty, at _them._

The Old Mare had different names, more than just Old Mare. But Geralt is old by human standards—even witcher standards—and he’s long forgotten them, as have many humans. Nowadays, children do their own candy gathering, helped by a parent instead of a fortune-granting ghost that wears a horse skull for a mask. 

Jaskier, at least, listens to his tale with rapt attention. His pumpkin-carved mask has triangles for eyes and a tar-black look from having been burned by a quick magic sign. It’s not the only mask of its kind, black being a popular choice this eve, but Jaskier certainly doesn’t care. 

Five houses down their treating path, the streets become a bit crowded like during the day. He half expects Jaskier to take the opportunity of distracted folk and his own anonymity to run out and snatch some candies out of people’s baskets.

Instead he feels a little hand grabbing his wrist.

“Geralt!” Jaskier tugs at him, “Geralt, they have candied apples there!”

A lady in full guise waits at the door to a large house. The most favorite stop in treating, he guesses, by the many harvest gifts left on her windowsill. 

The lady waves Jaskier closer and hands him the candied treat.

“Thank you, ma’am.”

As Geralt waits for Jaskier to skip back, he spots a horse skull poled on her porch, an empty basket sitting at its feet. 

It seems the Old Mare still lives on, in her own way.

“So,” he greets the boy with a quirk of his brow, “You _can_ be nice when you want to be, huh.”

“Yah, but it’s not _fun.”_

“Hm.” Without missing a beat, he rubs his knuckles into Jaskier’s head, pulling an affronted squawk out of him. 

“I was going to share my amazing bounty, but for that, you’re not getting any of it. Not even the gross nuts!”

Geralt gives him an accepting nod. “Alright, three more houses and you’re off to bed. It’s late, and kids have no business staying up past midnight.”

“I wanna stay up!” Jaskier yells, finally using his powerful little kid lungs. 

After another hour of treating, he follows Geralt back to the inn with a yawn, his fist wound tightly around the witcher’s thumb. He doesn’t even eat any of his collected treats, just sets them apart over the room’s lone nightstand.

“You can have them as thanks,” the boy murmurs, rubbing his eyes.

Geralt tucks him into the room’s bed. There’s only the one, their usual arrangement on low coin. He’s alright with giving Jaskier the bed and taking a seat to meditate for the night. 

He remembers the dragon and Jaskier's own words. “Saying thank you is enough. It doesn't always have to be a trade.”

At dawn, Geralt wakes to a bewildered, full-grown bard poking the night’s bounty.

“Is there any reason why we have an overflowing sack of candy?”

“Ah.” 

Over breakfast—an unrecommended combination of cheese, bread, and sugary confections—Geralt sums the previous day up, as Jaskier can’t recollect anything after the dragon’s magical words.

His face glows red at some of the things Geralt describes him doing—mostly what a rascal of a child he was. “Gods, I must have been so hard to look after.”

Geralt shrugs. “Not really. You had your moments.” And looking back with a fresh perspective, he sees where the boy who would become Jaskier still lives on.

Before they head out to the road, Jaskier makes one last request to check the market for a new bag. He’d intended on doing that yesterday but, well. A lot happened to prevent him from doing that.

The market proves eventful. He not only buys a new bag, but a few interesting trinkets that faintly jog his memory to the last time he carved a mask and went treating. It’s been years, Jaskier says wistful, and it’s quite the shame he can’t remember doing it not a day ago. He’d always liked the holiday as a child.

Over his shoulder, Geralt presents him with a treat. 

“Here,” he hands over a candied apple, “They gave me a free one.”

They didn’t. He bought the two on his own coin, but the happy glint that overtakes Jaskier’s eyes is worth its price and the little white lie to save himself the embarrassing question of why he bought him one.

“Ooh! I love candied apples.” Just as the bard is about to take a monstrous mouthful of a bite, he squints at the witcher. “How did you know?”

Geralt hums. “Had a feeling.” 

A ray of sun winks in his eye and he blinks, looking up at the strange reflection.

Something shimmers in the sky, two faraway flecks the color of moss green. The smaller twirls around the bigger. When he blinks again, they’re gone. 

“Hmm," Jaskier takes his attention again. "Thank you.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you're interested, you can find me [@seventfics](https://seventfics.tumblr.com) on tumblr and [@the_sevent](https://twitter.com/the_sevent) on twitter.


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